News Articles Library Event Photos Contact Search


Displaying items by tag: scrimshaw

Wednesday, 11 June 2014 11:43

British Folk Art Goes on View at Tate Britain

In this country, we don’t really go in for folk art – or at least, not in the way America does. Yes, there’s a collection of folk art on display at Compton Verney and another at the American Museum in Bath, but mostly it’s shown in local and regional museums. There’s nothing here on the scale or importance of the 150,000 works of art in the Shelburne Museum in Vermont or the American Folk Art Museum in New York City.

British condescension towards the whole subject was encapsulated in Jeremy Deller’s and Alan Kane’s insufferably smug installation Folk Archive, a personal collection of objects that served to illustrate for a metropolitan elite what the common folk like to do in their spare time. Had these two conceptual artists not made the blindingly obvious point that that the paraphernalia of Morris dancing and effigies of the Pope and Guy Fawkes reflect something or other about the nation’s collective unconscious, such folk artefacts would never have been allowed to pollute the sacred grove of high culture that is Tate Britain.

Published in News

On January 25, Sotheby’s held the auction ‘Visual Grace: Important American Folk Art from the collection of Ralph O. Esmerian’ in New York. The sale, which included over 208 lots ranging from watercolors, portraits, pottery, furniture and weathervanes to carvings, needlework, sculpture and scrimshaw, fetched $12,955,943, significantly exceeding its pre-sale estimate of $9.5 million. The sale set a new record total for any auction of American folk art. 

The top lot of the auction was a carved figure of Santa Claus by wood carver Samuel Robb, which sold for $875,000, far surpassing its pre-sale estimate of $250,000. Other important sales included Ruth Whittier Shute and Samuel Addison Shute’s portrait of Jeremiah H. Emerson, which brought $665,000; a rare carved pine pheasant hen weathervane from the late 19th century, which sold for $449,000; and ‘The Carver Limner,’ a painting depicting three members of Freeport’s Carver family, which fetched $521,000.

Esmerian, the former chairman emeritus of New York’s American Folk Art Museum, is currently serving a six-year sentence for fraud. The sale at Sotheby’s was ordered by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and generated $10.5 million for Esmerian’s creditors including Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

Published in News

In an effort to curb the massive debts accrued by the American Folk Art Museum’s former chairman, Ralph Esmerian, the institution has decided to sell over 200 works from its collection at an auction at Sotheby’s. Esmerian, the former owner of the jewelry company Fred Leighton, is currently serving a six-year jail sentence for wire fraud and other charges.

In 2005, Esmerian promised to donate 263 works from his illustrious collection to the Folk Art Museum. However, he used some of those same works as collateral to secure multi-million-dollar loans with Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Late last month, Manhattan’s U.S. Bankruptcy Court arranged a settlement with the museum allowing the Folk Art Museum to keep 53 of the promised works as long as they enhance the institution’s collection and aid its educational mission. The remaining works, which include paintings, sculptures, scrimshaw, and needleworks, will be sold at Sotheby’s.

The trustee responsible for liquidating Esmerian’s estate has decided to sell the remainder of the collection through Sotheby’s, much to Christie’s dismay. Christie’s filed an objection to the settlement on March 15, 2013 claiming that Sotheby’s intimidated the trustee into choosing them to host the important auction.

The Esmerian sale will be held in December 2013 or January 2014 and the profits will go towards repaying the creditors the former chairman defrauded.    

Published in News
Wednesday, 02 January 2013 13:13

Folk Art Museum to Relinquish Promised Artworks

When Ralph Esmerian, owner of the jewelry company Fred Leighton, filed for bankruptcy and was sentenced to six years in jail for fraud in 2011, the American Folk Art Museum felt the repercussions. Esmerian, a prominent donor and former chairman of the institution, had promised the museum 263 works from his illustrious collection. Since Esmerian’s downfall, the museum has been working with a trustee of the case to reach an agreement, which was recently realized.

The settlement between the Folk Art Museum and Esmerian states that the institution is entitled to 53 of the artworks he promised to donate. While the chosen pieces are yet to be specified to the public, they were selected for their exceptional quality and include portraits, needleworks, fraktur, sculpture, pottery, and scrimshaw. The retained works will enhance the museum’s collection and aid its educational mission.

The Folk Art Museum will be forced to part with the other 210 promised works, which will most likely be sold at auction in an effort to settle other bankruptcy estate claims.

Published in News
Events